


All My Memories

by Lauralot



Series: Alexander Pierce should have died slower [32]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drug Addiction, Gen, Non-Sexual Age Play, Painkillers, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Rehabilitation, Stuffed Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 23:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10774803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot
Summary: Bucky visits Rumlow in rehab.It doesn't go as smoothly as he'd hoped.





	All My Memories

**I want to live with all my memories. Even if they're bad memories. Even if they're memories that only hurt me...that I'd rather forget. If I keep them and keep trying, without running away, then someday I'll be strong enough that those memories can't defeat me. I believe that because I want to think that there's no such thing as a memory that's ok to forget.**

— Momiji Sohma, _Fruits Basket_

  


“Didn’t think you’d come back.”

Bucky ducks his head down, stomach sinking. His fingers toy with the straps of his shield backpack. The Commander doesn’t sound angry—more surprised than anything—but somehow that’s worse than if he were mad. Like he expected Bucky to lie from the very beginning.

And that’s what Bucky did, really. _They’ve got visiting hours here,_ he’d said on the Commander’s very first day at this rehab clinic. _I’ll be back next Saturday._ But he hadn’t been.

Bucky meant to keep that promise. He wanted to see the Commander and Brock Bear, and so had Bucky Bear. He wanted to be sure that the Commander was okay and see if he was maybe making friends. He missed him.

But then Bucky remembered the other Winter Soldiers and they were all at the tower and Bucky had to be with them all the time because they still thought they were with HYDRA. And once they’d found out they weren’t, they’d been so scared and angry and had latched onto Bucky like he had all the answers. He couldn’t leave them alone.

Bucky Bear, sitting beside Bucky at the table in the visitor’s lounge, says they should have brought the duckling soldiers to visit. He says nobody would have messed with the Commander if Bucky had shown up with five other Winter Soldiers to be the Commander’s new friends.

Bucky thinks that his bear has not thought out the logistics of handling five soldiers in a non-Avengers building where they’d probably think the Commander was imprisoned.

And he’s not sure the Commander would be thrilled with five more Winter Soldiers anyway. He always looks grumpy enough when there’s just Bucky.

“Sorry,” Bucky says. He doesn’t know what to say next. Even if he explains about the ducklings, there’s still a lot of time after they went to their own clinic when Bucky didn’t visit. He doesn’t know what to say. That he was scared the Commander would be angry Bucky broke his promise? He was scared that the Commander wouldn’t be doing any better, and he didn’t know how else to help if rehab didn’t work? He didn’t want to show up and remind the Commander of all the bad things in his life from HYDRA, like Jack and the stuff Pierce did?

He just stays quiet, head down, waiting for the Commander to tell him to get out.

Instead, the Commander sits down on the other side of the table. “Figured Rogers had you under house arrest,” he says. “Or you just came to your senses, finally. You break out, Winter?”

“Uh-uh.” Daddy drove him here. He said for Bucky to call when he was done visiting, but Bucky thinks Daddy probably didn’t go home. He might be driving around the neighborhood over and over, close by in case anything goes bad.

He hadn’t wanted Bucky to come here. Bucky could tell from the look on Daddy’s face when he’d asked for a ride. But he didn’t argue, the way he did back when the Commander first overdosed and Bucky set up the clinic placement and everything.

The Commander looks a little surprised. Maybe a lot surprised; his eyebrows don’t move like they used to before the burns. Either way, he must have thought that Daddy had to be keeping Bucky locked up to keep him from visiting and now he must think Bucky didn’t want to see him at all.

“I wanted to come sooner!” Bucky blurts out. He hauls Bucky Bear off of his own chair and into his lap, squeezing him tight. “But then I remembered the ducklings and we had to save them and they needed all kinds of help!”

“Ducklings?” the Commander asks. He looks around the room, probably to see if anyone’s staring because Bucky’s being too loud.

“The other Winter Soldiers.” Bucky tries to whisper, but it doesn’t seem much quieter. Just way more obvious. “That’s what Clint calls them. They were in the ice and they came to the tower and now—”

“There’s more of you?” The Commander’s voice is loud, even louder than Bucky’s before he started to whisper, and now people are definitely staring.

Bucky looks down again, pulling the brim of his baseball cap over his face.

“Come on.” There’s a squeal as the Commander’s chair pushes back on the linoleum. He stands up with a little grunt. “Let’s talk in my room.”

“Is that allowed?” Bucky asks, getting up. He holds Bucky Bear to his chest with one hand and squeezes the strap of his backpack in the other.

“Yeah.” The Commander’s already heading for the door. “It’s rehab, not prison.”

When Bucky first brought him here, the Commander had called it a prison. Bucky Bear says this is progress. Bucky just tries to keep up with the Commander while still staring at the ground. He doesn’t want anyone to see him, to put two and two together and make the Commander’s life harder than it already is.

The Commander’s real name is on his registration paperwork for the clinic, but Bucky knows that before he started group therapy or anything like that, that the doctors and the Commander sat down and came up with something else to call him, so that nobody would try to hurt him because he was a HYDRA agent. Bucky isn’t sure if even the nurses know that the Commander is Brock Rumlow.

He’s in the same room that he was when Bucky dropped him off, with Brock Bear sitting on the bed. Bucky puts his own bear down next to him so they can catch up, before setting his backpack on the floor. The shades on the window are open, filling the little space with light even before the Commander flips the switch.

He shuts the door after them. Bucky’s surprised to find that there’s a lock on it, but then, the staff probably all have keys. It must be there just in case of patients fighting or something.

“There are more Winter Soldiers?” the Commander asks. He sounds even hoarser than normal.

“Five more. They were in cryo in Siberia,” Bucky explains. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands and shoves them in his pockets, wishing he hadn’t put Bucky Bear down. “I remembered them and the Avengers got ‘em out.”

“Jesus Christ.” The Commander runs a hand through his hair. There’s a little desk next to the dresser and he sinks down onto the chair that goes with it, looking exhausted. “And they’re all—Pierce had _six_ fucking sex slaves for—”

“No!” Bucky’s stomach churns at the thought. He sits on the bed without asking first and that’s rude, but the Commander’s upset and going all white under his scars and now Bucky’s imagining Pierce using the ducklings like that, Arkady all scared and Dmitri trying to make sense of sick demands that didn’t serve any bigger purpose. Pierce hurting them or ordering them to hurt Bucky. He wants to be sick. “No, he never even saw them! They weren’t like me, they were in Russia the whole time. And HYDRA never sent them on missions.” 

The Commander still looks pale around his scars as he nods, followed by a hard swallow. “And now they’re loose?”

“Tony made a special hospital for them.” Bucky squeezes Brock Bear’s foot with one hand, and Bucky Bear’s with the other. He can feel the fuzzy texture of their paws even through his gloves. “That’s where they are now. They don’t want to be with HYDRA anymore.” At least, Bucky hopes they still don’t. “But first they were really scared and needed help all the time and I couldn’t come visit.”

“Christ,” the Commander says again. Dipping his head down into his hands, he rubs at his temples. “Nothing can ever be normal with you people, can it?”

Bucky isn’t sure how to answer that, or if he even should. He keeps quiet and looks around the room.

It’s mostly the same as it was when Bucky left last time. Same bed, dresser, and desk. The closet is closed, so Bucky doesn’t know if there’s anything new in it. The Commander hasn’t put up any posters or anything—Bucky’s not sure if that’s even allowed—but there is a little calendar taped up on the wall. It’s just for this month, and almost every day has something printed on it. It must be an events calendar for the clinic, noting therapy times and visiting hours, stuff like that.

There’s a book on the desk, cover bent and the pages dog-eared, probably from a communal library. The spine is creased, but Bucky can still read the title: _The Screwtape Letters._ There’s a few magazines too. He can’t see their names.

There’s a round little ball on top of the dresser. It might be a stress ball, or one of the kinds that people squeeze to make their hands stronger. There’s a pair of shoes on the floor by the foot of the bed.

At least the room looks like somebody lives here. The Commander’s apartment has way more stuff, but the only things that ever looked used were all the beer cans and pill bottles.

“Do _not_ bring them here, Winter,” the Commander says. His hands aren’t on his face now, arms resting on top of the back of the chair. “Got it? I barely have the energy to deal with you.”

Bucky tries not to flinch at the words. He nods, staring down at the bedspread. “I won’t. And they don’t know about you. I didn’t tell them.”

“Thank fuck for small favors,” the Commander mutters. He looks so tired.

“Do you need anything?” Maybe a glass of water would help. Bucky shifts his weight, getting ready to stand up. “Are you okay?” A thought strikes him and he goes cold all over, hands slipping off the bears’ feet. “Are they giving you anything for your burns?” The Commander _needs_ something for his pain, even if he took way too many of those pills in his apartment. He got hurt so bad, but this is a rehab clinic and what if they won’t let him take anything at all? What if Bucky’s been torturing him by having him stay here?

“Sit your ass down,” the Commander orders.

Bucky settles back on the bed automatically.

“Breathe, Winter. Christ’s sake.” The Commander shakes his head. “I’m on painkillers, all right? Calm down.”

As Bucky Bear counts to ten for him, Bucky slowly lets out his breath. “You are?” He should be happy, he knows. But he doesn’t want the Commander to overdose again.

“Yeah, I am. Look, it’s not like the burns go away if I stop taking pain meds.” With a sigh, the Commander runs a hand through his hair again. He’s had his hair cut since Bucky saw him last. It’s more like it was on STRIKE missions now, shorter and actually styled. “They keep telling me the point isn’t to end up without any pills. It’s ‘to maintain a maximum level of function through reasonable, well-managed and monitored pain relief.’” His voice goes higher at the explanation, like he’s mimicking somebody. Probably a doctor.

“Oh,” Bucky says. He decides not to ask who monitors that when the Commander leaves the clinic.

“It’s just drinking they won’t let me do,” the Commander adds. His voice is his own again, and so bitter that Bucky winces.

“Sorry.” Bucky says it without thinking. He’s not even sure what he’s sorry for, because he’s not sorry that the Commander isn’t allowed to drink until he passes out and throws up anymore. Just sorry that he’s upset, maybe.

“Sorry?” the Commander repeats.

Bucky doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything.

“You throw me in this hellhole where I have to sit in a circle twice a week and listen to the brain dead talk about how they found God, and you’re sorry? I spend every morning watching some judgmental bitch with a PhD try and pretend she doesn’t wish I was dead for the shit I’ve done, and you’re sorry they won’t let me get drunk? Well, you’ve got a real fucking funny way of showing that, Winter.”

The words make him cold, drawn in and shuddering like he always did when he woke up from the ice. Bucky wants to curl up on himself, to hide, to take the bears and run back to Daddy. “But you would have died if you didn’t get help!”

“Then I should have died!” the Commander shouts. “I should have burned in the wreckage with Jack and everyone else! You think this is better, Winter? You think I want to be a goddamn cripple with no money or friends or anything to look forward to besides the next dose of Vicodin? So I’m alive. Fucking great. I was on international TV as the HYDRA agent who let his boss rape a famous war hero, and the only reason I haven’t gotten fucking shanked for it is because everyone else here is too brain-damaged to recognize me! I wish I were dead!”

There’s heat growing in Bucky’s chest and his eyes, wet and weird and clashing with the cold in his extremities. He bites his lip, eyes welling with tears. He’s mad, and that feels wrong wrong _wrong_. The Commander took care of him in the house with the snow. The Commander speaks Bear. Bucky shouldn’t be mad at him, especially when he’s hurt and probably sick from not getting to drink anymore, but he can’t help it. “You have the chance to be better!”

That’s what Daddy always says when the nightmares are bad and being told it wasn’t his fault doesn’t make Bucky feel any less guilty. Bucky isn’t sure if it’ll make the Commander feel better. He isn’t sure that he _wants_ the Commander to feel better, not when the Commander’s being so mean.

“Like that makes a fucking difference! Like I’ll ever have a life outside of waiting to die and getting harassed by you! I wish you’d died, Winter! I wish you drowned in the Potomac so I wouldn’t have anyone to try and keep me from just dying in peace!”

Bucky bursts into tears.

Once the Commander had told him that it was against the rules to cry at the apartment. They’re not at the apartment anymore, but the Commander’s living here for now, so the same rules probably apply. But Bucky can’t stop crying. He’s gasping and sobbing and so, so _loud_ , and he brings up his hands to cover his mouth, but he can’t make the crying stop. All he wanted was for the Commander to be okay. To be alive and have the chance to be happy. He just wanted to have a friend from his time as the Soldier, and everyone else is dead or missing. And the Commander’s been wishing that Bucky were dead this whole time.

The Commander’s saying something, but Bucky can’t hear him through his tears. Something soft brushes his cheek, probably a bear, but Bucky can’t move his hands. He’d be so loud if he did. He’d be even more annoying.

Then there are arms closing around him, squeezing. Either the Commander’s trying to haul him out of the room or he’s gotten an orderly to do it, and Bucky goes stiff, hyperventilating. But the arms don’t move. They just stay wrapped tight around him.

Bucky lowers his hands because he’s not sobbing anymore—he can’t stop gasping for long enough to cry out—and the Commander’s hugging him.

It’s not like Daddy’s hugs, huge and all around him like a blanket. But it’s a hug from the Commander, right after he said that he wished Bucky were dead, and that’s confusing enough that Bucky can feel his tears stop.

“I’m sorry,” the Commander says. His hands are shaking.

Bucky sniffs. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Kid, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that. I don’t want you to die, Winter.”

Bucky Bear and Brock Bear are still sitting on the side of the bed, leaning against the wall, watching. They don’t look like they know what to say either.

“I’m glad you got out,” the Commander mutters. “I—I’m glad. That you can be happy.”

Then he pulls away and his eyes look wet, but Bucky doesn’t get a good look because the Commander stands up. He goes to stand by the window and he doesn’t look at Bucky.

“I only wanted to help,” Bucky whispers.

The Commander’s shoulders draw up. His hands are squeezing the window sill. “I know, Winter. I know you do. It’s not your fault.”

Bucky shifts his hand, fingers curling around Brock Bear. He wants to hand the bear to the Commander, but he doesn’t want to make him upset again.

“When I could get drunk,” the Commander says, “it made things numb. I thought I used to feel like shit, but it’s nothing like now. Everything I felt then, it’s tenfold these days.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, before he can stop himself.

“Not your fault. Just, now I feel all this crap, and it’s not like I can tell the group about all my dead HYDRA buddies. And no way in hell I’d give my therapist the satisfaction of seeing me fall apart.”

He steps away from the window, pulling his wrists back like he had to pry himself free from the sill. He sits at the foot of the bed.

Bucky wants to touch his hand but isn’t sure if he should.

“And now here you are, and you brought me here. And you’ve seen me at my lowest, and…” The Commander trails off. “I just let it all out. You don’t deserve that, Winter. You—God knows why, you actually give a damn about me. And I only ever treat you like shit. All of that, just now? I’m sorry, kid. If you want to go home now, I don’t blame you.”

“Maybe I could talk to the people in charge again,” Bucky offers. He’s hugging Brock Bear now. Brock Bear probably hasn’t had enough hugs lately. “See if you can get a better doctor.”

The Commander snorts and shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it, all right? No one’s gonna _like_ having sessions with a HYDRA agent every day. You want to call your ride? You need a phone?”

“I’m okay.”

The Commander laughs again. “Neither of us are okay. You sure you don’t wanna go?”

“I brought stuff for Brock Bear,” Bucky says. He shifts Brock Bear in his arms, putting one hand over the Commander’s. He only keeps it there for a second; his face gets red and he pulls away, hugging the bear again. “In my backpack.”

“Stuff?”

“A sleeping bag.” Bucky had wanted to bring a whole little bed, but he wasn’t sure the metal frame would be allowed. “And pajamas and blankets.” Really soft ones, so they wouldn’t bother his sensitive fur. “And some more clothes, in case he doesn’t wanna wear the same thing all the time. And shoes. And slippers for his pajamas. And a towel. And a little stuffed duck in case he ever needs a duck. Also there’s some bear Band-Aids in case he needs them. And some more Axe. And bear gel.”

“Don’t suppose you smuggled in a Playbear magazine?” the Commander asks.

Bucky just tilts his head.

“Never mind. Thanks, Winter. For everything.” It seems like he might say something more, but the Commander just shifts and stands up. He doesn’t grunt this time. Maybe the pain medicine at the clinic is better than what he had before, or maybe they’ve been teaching the Commander other ways to deal with his scars.

“Here,” the Commander says. “Let’s get all your bear stuff out, all right? And then maybe we can walk around the place or some shit, I don’t know. There’s not that much to see, but we might as well.”

“Somebody might see me,” Bucky points out.

“Most of ‘em would be too fried to notice.” The Commander sets Bucky’s backpack on the bed so Bucky can start unloading it. “Just stare down at the floor and don’t say much and I’ll tell anyone who asks that you’re a friend who burnt himself out on heroin or something.”

Bucky tries to take out the little container of bear gel and closes his hand around his phone by mistake. “You want to see pictures of my guinea pig?” he asks.

“Your what?”

“I got a pet guinea pig!” Bucky bounces on the bed as he unlocks his phone. There’s even a video of Glaurung popcorning. That’ll have to make the Commander happy. “His name’s Glaurung.”

The Commander sighs. He looks tired again. “You really can’t ever do anything normal, can you, kid?”

“Nope,” Bucky says. “Do you want to see?”

With a nod, the Commander settles onto the bed beside Bucky. He looks at the phone, resting a hand on Brock Bear’s head. “All right, show me.”

**Author's Note:**

> [ _Fruits Basket_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruits_Basket) is a manga and anime series by Natsuki Takaya.
> 
> _The Screwtape Letters_ is a novel by CS Lewis depicting a series of letters between two demons regarding human temptation. Its inclusion here is due to its appearance in Season 1, Episode 1 of Frank Grillo's DirecTV series _Kingdom_ , in which Grillo's character gives the novel to a recovering addict.
> 
> Thanks to [WhatEvenAmI](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatEvenAmI/pseuds/WhatEvenAmI) for suggesting most of the bearcessories for Brock Bear!
> 
> Check out these awesome APSHDS-inspired fics:
> 
> [_When You're Weary_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10535511) by Anonymous  
> [ _Dear Sergeant Barnes_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10557506) by [jasongrayson](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jasongrayson/pseuds/jasongrayson)
> 
> Come say hello on [Tumblr](http://lauralot89.tumblr.com/)!


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